London's highly respected Channel 4 provides a balanced summary of the issues surrounding the Domestic Spying Hearing which were held in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.

The report notes the similarities between hearings in 1975 about Nixon's abuse of wiretapping.

Most most U.S. media outlets spin the Domestic Spying scandal as a winning issue for the Bush team. In contrast, the Channel 4 reporter explains that American people are very concerned with privacy abuses. This scandal has Bush and his Congressional supporters in a very difficult position.

The FISA law passed in 1978 was in response to wiretapping under Nixon, Johnson, and Kennedy. Therefore they were operating under different restrictions altogether.

Bush violated FISA. There's no doubt about that. Now, Gonzales says George Washington also used electronic surveillance, which if true does not mean Washington broke the law. But he must have blown a fuse or two, because there was no electronics in the 18th century.

The ending of the video is chilling: "...unless they are attacked again." That has to be an almost irresistable invitation for Bush, et al. After hearing that the Super Bowl has changed its security company after 29 years, I thought something was going to happen last Sunday.

We Don't stand against it, we just want to make sure everyones rights, including yours, are not trampelled on. Perhaps you don't care about your rights. Let me guess, your going to say were at war right, and our rights should be suspended in such times? Gee, what happens if those rights remain suspended permanately?

The Bush cabal was wiretapping before 9/11 and was aware of what was coming. They didn't act because GWB needed a "Pearl Harbor" incident to put in place the neocon plan to replace democracy with a police state.
The next "incident" (and its coming) will so terrify Americans that they will surrender whatever remaining rights we still have.
That's when martial law will called and the neocons will start filling up those concentration camps with Moslems, Arabs and "dissenters."
I, too, thought there would be an incident during the Super Bowl, but perhaps that would have been too obvious a move (remember Black Sunday?). But I think a dirty bomb will be going off somewhere in the U.S. and the "evidence" will point to Iran as the guilty party and the bombs will commence to fall all over Persia.

Hey Dredd, Their watching all right, I had a post ready to go and she got sucked up when I hit submit, it never posted
I used a few choice words just to see what would happen
Like words you wouldn't use around an airport,and POOF!

Lest any of you were duped into believing the Admin had fulfilled their civic duties by informing the much touted, Bi-Partisan, Gang of Eight about the NSA program, please see a Gang Member's Letter to the President, which cites the relevant statutes.

The restricted congressional notification policy on the NSA surveillance program has produced an absurd result, said Sen. Jay Rockefeller at a February 2 hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"Director Negroponte, consider this fact," said Sen. Rockefeller. "The only NSA program the White House had authorized senior intelligence officials to discuss publicly is the only NSA program all members of the congressional Intelligence Committees are prohibited from knowing about."

"I hope you are struck by this paradox and troubled by its implication."

Ever since Greg Dyke (former chief of BBC) was ousted because he was trying to get the truth out about Dr David Kellys highly suspicious "suicide" and the lies of the Iraq war... I've never trusted the BBC, it's practically being twisted into a government megaphone thanks to people like the UK's "culture" minister, Tessa Jowell.

When the London bombs went off, BBC and ITV were throwing out speculation.. C4 waited and just stuck to the facts.

They're also the most likely to run with hard-hitting political scandals these days out of the UK's terrestrial channels. - So.. respect to 'em for that.